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Live iPhone 4 press event coverage

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Re: Live iPhone 4 press event coverage

#51

Post by vitobcn »

AndrewHampton wrote: post #20

Based on the little I know about signal strength for digital phones, the number of bars really doesn't matter, The bars could just be replaced with an indicator letting you know whether or not you have strong enough signal to make a call. And from that perspective, the stats discussed today that there is less than one additional dropped call per 100 calls make this whole thing seem like a non-issue. However, what I h…

Without getting into details about digital modulations, yes, parameters such as signal strength, network congestion, user speeds, etc. do affect transfer rates.

The speeds quoted by phone providers are always the maximum transfer rates allowed by the communication standard used by the network.

To give an example with WiFi networks. Even though a router might support 802.11n and have a maximum speed of 144Mbit/s, if you're far from it, your transfer speed could only be 11Mbit/sec.

Re: Live iPhone 4 press event coverage

#52

Post by zppx »

macrael wrote: post #46
zppx wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is the correct attitude when you're an entertainment company, or a company that does have a direct relationship with costumers, but might not work for other types, such as services for enterprises.

Is it? When you are selling services for enterprises, shouldn't your focus still be on making those businesses happy? I've never been in such a market, so maybe I don't know, but it seems to me like your focus should be similar.

Yes it is, but there the focus on the customer is far less important than on the investors. This is part of something that makes Apple and some other companies unique.

Re: Live iPhone 4 press event coverage

#53

Post by mfarris »

ccorda wrote: post #23
zhyder wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's 1% of all calls: http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2010/07/iphone... . Am I the only one that thinks that's actually a lot?

If the norm is a 5% drop rate, that's a 20% increase. If the norm is even higher, then the increase is less as a percentage, but no wonder ATT won't release the numbers.

If my family and friends' experience is any indication, the drop rate is over 50%. So it's probably going from 55% to 56%: horrible to a teensy bit more horrible.

I live in Los Angeles. There are cell towers uglifying the sky everywhere. My favorites are the mock trees -- one in Burbank is a squat, fake palm tree with "coconut" repeaters. And despite the apparent ability to put towers absolutely anywhere... AT&T still blows.

Re: Live iPhone 4 press event coverage

#54

Post by extension »

cwilson wrote: post #49

Something no one is mentioning or commenting on: When the 3GS launched the majority of buyers walked out of the store with a case in hand. When the iPhone 4 launched 80% of buyers were not able to take a case with them as well (due to their being no third party cases at launch and a shortage of bumpers). If it would have been the opposite, and 80% of customers walked out of the store WITH a case, I'm guessing that "l…

Does 3GS reception improve with a case? I thought the iPhone 4 only improved because of the exposed antenna.

Re: Live iPhone 4 press event coverage

#55

Post by mattmillr »

rauljara wrote: post #21

Q: Are you willing to make an apology to investors? Steve: You know we hear from customers who love this phone and have a great experience with it, and we're doing a lot to help them with any issues they're seeing. To investors, you know, you invest in the company we are, so if the stock goes down $5... I don't think I owe them an apology. Whether or not Jobs is bs-ing about loving his customers so much, I wish more…

I'm glad Gdgt ran this full quote. Engadget unfortunately dropped the first part of it from their liveblog (not really a problem, they're typing and submitting pretty quickly) but then ran an article that started "Apple's not really ready to say it's sorry about the iPhone 4 antenna design..."

Re: Live iPhone 4 press event coverage

#56

Post by powrtoch »

extension wrote: post #54
cwilson wrote: post #49

Something no one is mentioning or commenting on: When the 3GS launched the majority of buyers walked out of the store with a case in hand. When the iPhone 4 launched 80% of buyers were not able to take a case with them as well (due to their being no third party cases at launch and a shortage of bumpers). If it would have been the opposite, and 80% of customers walked out of the store WITH a case, I'm guessing that "l…

Does 3GS reception improve with a case? I thought the iPhone 4 only improved because of the exposed antenna.

According to Steve (and others) you get a similar phenomenon with earlier iPhones, it's just that the "do not touch" zone is in a different place. So a case would help any of these phones.

Re: Live iPhone 4 press event coverage

#57

Post by fmora »

ajg1977 wrote: post #6

Those pictures of other phones losing signal were hilarious. Yes, if you hold other smartphones in a clam-like grip then they do lose signal. But not when you place a single finger on one small spot on the outside of the phone. It's good that Apple will be providing free cases, but it's still going to suck when they start releasing phones with tweaked antenna insulation in a few months that eliminates this issue.

Honestly, how is it going to suck. You can return your current iPhone 4 now and wait for one of those phones with the insulation already present. Seriously, it seems that in your eyes no matter what Apple does it will still suck.

Re: Live iPhone 4 press event coverage

#58

Post by pistoriusp »

ajg1977 wrote: post #12
mbreese wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

single finger on one small spot I'd like to see you hold a phone with a single finger...

I hold my phone lightly, not in a death grip. If part of my skin touches the wrong area on the iPhone 4, signal vanishes. Capeche?

Are you going to return it?

Re: Live iPhone 4 press event coverage

#60

Post by allwein »

drivebyacct2 wrote: post #50
zhyder wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's 1% of all calls: http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2010/07/iphone... . Am I the only one that thinks that's actually a lot?

Considering that people constantly complained about call reception and dropping on the 3GS and the iPhone 4 was heralded as the solution? Yes, I was shocked. I thought Apple handled this all well, but I was really expecting them to say that the "iPhone 4 still provides better reception than the 3GS". I guess they can't actually make that claim and I still find that a bit funny.

Actually, they could still make that claim, and it goes along with my personal theory about the higher drop rate.

The measurement provided was simply the "drop rate" per 100 calls. Implicit in this is that it's the drop rate for successfully connected calls, since a call that never connects can't be dropped. I believe that the iPhone 4 is more sensitive and has better reception than the 3GS. There are rooms in my house where I get 0 bars and I can't make a phone call on the 3GS but I can successfully make calls on the iPhone 4.

So let's say I try to make 100 calls, but the reception sucks in some rooms so on the 3GS only 80 calls successfully connect and of those 4 get dropped. That's a drop percentage of 5% or 5 our of 100. But let's say on the iPhone 4 I'm able to successfully connect on all 100 calls, but since the signal is so low in some of the rooms, I drop 10 of the calls. So 10% or 10 out of 100.

So I've now got a drop rate that's double the 3GS, even though I'm able to make 10 more completely successful calls per 100.

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